I manage all my music in iTunes ( playlists and metadata tagging ), this because I use my iPod Nano during my sport activities! On my HTPC I have a backup running of all my available music, so Media Center will pick this up in the Music hub.

I own a Nikon D40x and love the quality it produces! To be able to do fine manipulation on my photo’s I tend to save them in RAW format ( Adobe DNG to be precise ). But the Pictures hub of Media Center doesn’t support any RAW format… to accomplish this, you can get the 64bit codec from FastPictureViewer! It works like a charm, now all my RAW pictures are viewable inside the Pictures hub.

TotalMedia from ArcSoft is a solid product when it comes to Blu-Ray playback on Windows… and thanks to the Media Center integrated interface you can now watch your Blu-Rays from inside Media Center itself!

All my Dvd’s are ripped unto the HTPC. To get a nice interface for different catalogues, I opted for Media Browser… it’s just a great tool with also plugin capability! It can also auto fetch movie information ( metadata, posters and backdrops ) from the internet.
I made a seperate catalogue for general movies and one for my kids 🙂 .

I went for this motherboard for 2 main reasons! One it would work perfectly with my intended CPU ( more later ) and secondly it has all the hardware on board for all the needed Home Theater features!
It has Full HD 1080p Blu-Ray playback capability, a S/PDIF In/Out with support for HD 7.1 channel audio and last but not least it supports DDR3 memory.

AMD is a good option for building a HTPC, because they have some nice cpu’s that try to keep your power consumption low. Meaning your machine also won’t heat up that much and because of this you don’t need to have high speed ( noisy ) fans! Also with the chosen motherboard I’m able to upgrade to a 6 core AMD if I want. For now I’ve chosen the 4 core 605e, because these e models only have a thermal design power of 45w!!

I just love the design of this case! It just looks stunning and has enough space to serve my purpose… I wanted to add one normal HD and one SSD ( more on this later ). This case incorporates a 380Watt EarthWatts power supply, so the total consumption of power is regulated!
The only drawback of this case is the absence of a IR receiver… but I didn’t want to buy the Antec Fusion Remote because, this case, has a LCD screen that is not needed in my setup and I also dislike the volume button ( because the sound is regulated through my receiver ).
For some people the silver front could also be a drawback, but I’m not that difficult 🙂

This was the most difficult thing to choose! Because I always thought to use this IR, but I read many ‘problems’ with it on different forums in combination with Logitech universal remotes!! And I own a Logitech Harmony One that I wanted to use in cooperation with the HTPC…
After much reading I decided to still have a go with it and now that the HTPC is in use, I have to say, I can’t complain 🙂
I have to admit it takes some setting and tweaking to get it working, but at the end I’m content! ( cfr my second post on software for more settings details )

One of the main features my HTPC needed to get was Blu-Ray playback! So to get this working, I needed to install a Blu-Ray drive. I just opted for one of the cheapest Blu-Ray roms because, writing Blu-Ray’s is not something I foresee to be doing on the HTPC.

For me a HTPC should be available fast and should be reasonable quiet, but also needs to be able to contain a lot of media data! To get best of both worlds I opted for a SSD as primary HD to boot from and a normal HD to store the media on! In time I could get an extra NAS if more storage is needed…
I have to say that a SDD drive to boot from is just fantastic! The speed is enormous, when you see it in action, you just keep wondering why not all pc’s are equipped with a SSD!!! Nothing but positive reactions when running the HTPC on a SSD.

* Memory: 4Gb of DDR3 memory

The motherboard supports DDR3, so went for that. I added 4Gb because the Windows 7 operating system is 64bits so all memory is used and 4Gb is more then enough for a good HTPC.

Well that’s it for the hardware, stay tuned for the software list in the second blog post.

Well my never ending story is here again 😉
I still need a good backup system for my pictures and iTunes collection ! But if possible I would also love to be able to use this system as a HTPC, maybe even one that could generate HD output !

Because of this need, I’m currently keeping track of a small wish list that could be used to build this HTPC. So for all people who are interested or would like to help me in my quest, here is the current state of that list.

Case : Antec NSK2480

The main issue everyone will have with building a HTPC is the choice of the correct case. This because it has to look nice enough that it could sit around in the living room, but still has to be functional enough to actually be a pc.

Motherboard : GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H

There are 2 reasons why I would go for this mobo… one is actually very obvious, it’s cheap ! Compared with the features you get, it really is. The second reason is the HD playback functionality and the added HDMI port.

CPU : AMD 4850E X2 64BIT Dual-core

This AMD cpu would seem like something not quite top notch, but it has some HTPC advantages. First of al it’s wattage is only 45W, one great feature for a pc that could be running a long time. Second one, related to the first, is the fact that the cpu will not get that hot so we can have some liberty on choosing a cpu cooler.

CPU Cooler : Scythe Shuriken

This Scythe Shuriken cooler is small, seems to be very quiet and would be enough for the cpu at hand. A small note though, a Scythe Ninja mini would also be a good option ( could be used without fan ), but is a bit more expensive.

HD : Western Digital Caviar Green

Western digital has come up with a green series of their Caviar products ! Meaning the HD will also be less power consuming… again a big plus for any HTPC.

Now that I have my Lightroom workflow set up nicely and my iTunes library organised centrally… I’m getting aware of a new problem with my current hardware setup !!
Because of the use of DNG photo files and MP3 files that have a low compression, I’m using up disk space fast !! And due to the fact that I don’t want to loose these files, I’m also duplicating them onto another drive, so that drive is getting full also.
So it seems that I need some new hardware to accommodate this.

First of, let me give you a small overview of what I have available right now:

Laptop with 80gb ( 2 years old )

Desktop with 80gb ( many years old )

USB/FireWire external HD with 250gb

USB external HD with 500gb

What are my needs for the new system:

Less external devices ! ( those external HD’s are great but take up space )

Central networked system so I can get to my files from my laptop or other devices if needed

But given these features, there are several possible solutions. Let me sum up a few:

And that sums it up, so looking at these specs, I think a nice HTPC would do the trick. Because that way I can hook it up in the network and place it at my TV and Hifi set, making movie and music playback possible !
But I’m a n00b when it comes to building pc systems myself, so I’m a bit stuck on what hardware to choose.
Still, the first selection any HTPC buyer has to make is picking a case to put all the hardware in.

So I did some searching and let me present you the current choices:

Origen AE H6

Zalman HD160

Antec Fusion 430

Here again to much choice ;), but I have to start somewhere !
So any thoughts on what to pick and why, just leave a comment… now I’m of to my friend Google again to read some reviews 😀